The Music of Changes is an object more inhuman than human, since chance operations brought it into being. The fact that these things that constitute it, though only sounds, have come together to control a human being, the performer, gives the work the alarming aspect of a Frankenstein monster. This situation is of course characteristic of Western music, the masterpieces of which are its most frightening examples, which when concerned with humane communication only move over from Frankenstein monster to Dictator.
—John Cage, Indeterminacy, from Composition As Process (1958)
I really like the idea of adding elements of improvisation, and sort of...chance - making the performers sort of engage a little differently with [a] piece. There's such a rigidity...and I mean having played so much standard repertoire and string quartet in string quartet land and everything, there's, you know, this expectation that things should be always a certain way and executed a certain way and there's a real beauty in trying to find your sound and your voice...
—New Music USA. “Jessie Montgomery: Conjuring Memories.” YouTube, commentary by Jessie Montgomery, 27 Apr. 2016.
Break Away (2013)
For String Quartet
Duration: 12:00
Jessie Montgomery is a violinist. Her compositional activities are a natural outgrowth of her life as a performer. Unless one engages with jazz, pop, and other genres, most classically trained performers spend their formative years honing their skills to perform music written by others. The formidable joy achieved is not to be taken for granted. However, make no mistake. The performer is channeling others' expression in a kind of seance (unless the composer is still alive, of course) whereby the performer is speaking in the voice of the composer. If that performer is part of a large ensemble, say a symphony orchestra, she is speaking in the voice of the composer, as interpreted by a conductor who is translating according to her desires. The performer's voice is usually quite stifled, if not absent, or, as John Cage writes in his lecture on indeterminacy, "The function of the instrumentalists is that of a workman who simply do as they are bid." For some performers, this can become exhausting. Some even choose to do something about it while maintaining a love for their instrument.
Montgomery has maintained her enthusiasm for string performance by expanding the possibilities in composition for string music. She writes idiomatically and allows for greater self-expression by incorporating elements of improvisation into traditionally rigid musical structures. She also is expanding the literature by incorporating an American vernacular full of folk and ambient flourishes that keep the music fresh and timely in the best sense. It's a tradition recognized worldwide as a defining characteristic of American music from Bernstein to Copland to Gershwin.